Tom Severino, Vice President and Market Manager for Emmis Indianapolis Radio, provides his thoughts on the speed in which technology has taken things and where it has taken the consumer.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Steve Marra, President of Adrenaline Motion Pictures, LLC, provides his insight on how the entertainment industry is rising upward at a fast pace and the opportunity for growth for everyone.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Bryan Gray, CEO of MediaSauce, discusses his thoughts on digital media and how it's going to revolutionize how we connect with each other.
The future belongs to those who can (1) work well in problem-solving groups, (2) tell a good story, and (3) adapt to changing technologies as fast as they change clothes. Ball State is teaching students the principle of "gather once, distribute many." In other words, the actual gathering of news is the hard part. If a reporter concentrates on getting the story in words, sound and pictures, then it can be distributed on any medium - Web, radio, television, or print.
If you concentrate on technology or distribution, you're concentrating on the medium and not the message. As we say, "Live by the technology, die by the technology."
So how can a university keep current? How can we possibly teach what will be needed in, say, 2014 or 2020? We concentrate on the message and not the medium.
The digital revolution has democratized our business. Digital technology has made equipment smaller, cheaper and easier to use. Anyone can be a filmmaker. Anyone can be a journalist. Anyone can do a podcast. Anyone can be "in the media." So we're all in the biz now? Why even go to college?
What makes the college graduate who studied telecommunications different from the bozo who puts his home video up on YouTube or the uninformed blogger who opines on whatever's in the news? It's the study of ethics, aesthetics, design, law, and history. A college kid studying filmmaking or news is really a miner (not a minor) of stories from his other classes, such as sociology, psychology, religious studies and literature. Those courses, and other core curriculum classes, provide the gray matter between the ears.
We are trying to teach our students to analyze and criticize media, not just consume it or produce it. An educated person should be able to discern good content from bad.
When we move out of the rarefied atmosphere of the ivory tower and into the real world economy, then money sometimes clouds discernment.
Nancy Carlson
Chair, TCOM Dept.
Ball State University
If you concentrate on technology or distribution, you're concentrating on the medium and not the message. As we say, "Live by the technology, die by the technology."
So how can a university keep current? How can we possibly teach what will be needed in, say, 2014 or 2020? We concentrate on the message and not the medium.
The digital revolution has democratized our business. Digital technology has made equipment smaller, cheaper and easier to use. Anyone can be a filmmaker. Anyone can be a journalist. Anyone can do a podcast. Anyone can be "in the media." So we're all in the biz now? Why even go to college?
What makes the college graduate who studied telecommunications different from the bozo who puts his home video up on YouTube or the uninformed blogger who opines on whatever's in the news? It's the study of ethics, aesthetics, design, law, and history. A college kid studying filmmaking or news is really a miner (not a minor) of stories from his other classes, such as sociology, psychology, religious studies and literature. Those courses, and other core curriculum classes, provide the gray matter between the ears.
We are trying to teach our students to analyze and criticize media, not just consume it or produce it. An educated person should be able to discern good content from bad.
When we move out of the rarefied atmosphere of the ivory tower and into the real world economy, then money sometimes clouds discernment.
Nancy Carlson
Chair, TCOM Dept.
Ball State University
